A victim of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal is taking legal action against the government-owned organisation as she seeks full redress for her wrongful conviction.
Janet Skinner is believed to be only the second victim to sue the Post Office.
The former subpostmistress has been “forced” to take the state-owned business to court, her solicitor told Sky News.
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Ms Skinner has been a campaigner for victims of the faulty Horizon software for nearly two decades.
Around 1,000 people were wrongly prosecuted and convicted throughout the UK between 1999 and 2015 as a result of Horizon.
Despite having her conviction for false accounting overturned in 2021, Ms Skinner has yet to receive a final payment, has been given an insufficient interim sum and is being asked for six different expert reports, said lawyer Simon Goldberg.
Ms Skinner is taking legal action in an attempt to see the issue resolved.
“There’s no sign of resolution. We’re only forced to do it because enough is enough,” Mr Goldberg said.
“It’s cruel and traumatic beyond belief that she should still have to be fighting.”
Ms Skinner’s claim should have been settled within 12 months of the conviction being overturned, he said.
Mr Goldberg added the interim offers are not in keeping with the recommendations of retired High Court judge Sir Wyn Williams, who presided over the public inquiry into the scandal.
Both the Post Office and the Department for Business and Trade, which administers all but one of the victims’ redress schemes, said in October they would “always apply a generous approach” to assessing redress.
But Ms Skinner was initially offered a payment worth only 15% of her total claim.
“They’ve [claim assessors] clearly tried to grind her down and make her give up, and we’re not playing,” her solicitor said.
